A group of Newark-based religious leaders filed into the city’s Department of Health and Community Wellness center to receive their first dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.
The clergy members were joined by Mayor Ras Baraka. They say that they hope that the community sees these leaders getting the vaccine and are encouraged to do the same.
“I’m compelled to do this based on the fact that I want to live,” says Pamela Jones, senior pastor of Liberating Word Ministries.
Officials say that some members of minority communities have been reluctant to get the vaccine.
“They trust their leaders and clergy more than they trust me and doctors and all these people telling them other things,” Baraka says.
The clergy members will return in 28 days to get their second dose of the vaccine.